Cathal Donohoe had a great 2003 but a nightmarish 2004. The 2003 Junior Player of the Year reflects on two very contrasting seasons for him and the Lavey club For Cathal Donohoe, 2003 was a dream come true. But for the same man, 2004 was a living nightmare that almost made a similarly deep impression on his cerebellum. The last two years have been a tale of two seasons for Cathal, a tale which has the word rollercoaster stamped all over it. But such is the vagaries of life in the middle lane where consistency of speed, efficiency of movement and goals achieved varies with the passing of every shower of rain almost. For the veteran Lavey attacker, another year of uncertainty beckons as far as Gaelic football and his own involvement are concerned. "2003 couldn't have went much better but 2004 was poor. The funny thing is the last year could have been even better than 2003 if the panel had put in a better, all-round effort during the year," the 2003 Junior Player of the Year award winner comments. It seems like Cathal finds it difficult to reflect on 2004 without visions of 'what might have been' flashing across his inner eye with a vengeance. "The talent was there but it just didn't show up at the right time or often enough. "We were poor against the likes of Cootehill in the championship but better against Kill but then bad again in the two matches against Drung," Cathal recalls. What made things that bit more disappointing for the Lavey club, Cathal surmises, was that expectations were fairly high at the outset of 2004. Getting through the group stage was seen by many as a minimum return on investment. Sadly for Cathal, his championship sorties were all too painful and brief. "I broke a couple of my ribs at the beginning of the second half playing against Cuchullains in the first round of the championship in Virginia and I wasn't really ever right for the rest of the championship. "I was in and out of the team because of the ribs. "I couldn't even get out of bed without a struggle at first and then it was a long time, maybe six weeks in all, before I could run without pain." And so Cathal was reduced to just cameo roles against Cootehill Celtic and Drung. Except, that is, for the replay against Drung, in the semi-final, when he lined out from pillar to post at full-forward. It all added up to a championship season of pure frustration. All that when he was just harbouring hopes of going out into the sunset with another county medal - to lay alongside his 2003 JFC honour and his Division Three league from yonder year - under his saddle. "A few of us that are coming to the end of our careers would have liked to have picked up a medal in 2004," admits Cathal who, at 34, along with brother Seamus and fellow veteran Declan Smith represented the veteran wing of the Lavey team of 2004. Yes it's a long while since Cathal was a rookie on Lavey's premier football team. Back then, in the early nineties, he donned the famed black and white in the company of such club stalwarts as Dessie King, Philip Duke and Andy Smith. And that sort of combination was good, to say the least. Over the course of two seasons, they gave as good as they got in competing in division one league circles with clubs with much greater resources. But, that said, there wasn't the same success garnered then as came the way of Donohoe and co. in 03 when the dreams of all concerned were well and truly fulfilled after the angst of relegation the previous season seemed to cast an eternal dark cloud over the black and whites. "We regrouped in 2003. It was a young enough team and we just put it together that year," explains Cathal who first came to prominence as an underage player on the Lavey under 16 and minor county title winning sides. And yet they couldn't have been fancied by many pundits to go the distance? "No, I'd say Kildallan were most people's favourites for the junior championship that year. "But when we beat them in the semi-final, after a replay, a lot of people sat up and took notice of us. "The only thing was I felt a bit sorry for Kildallan after that game because they'd be knocking on the door for so long," the hard-working farmer adds. While not conceding to the view that Lavey had their names on the cup in 03 from early on, Cathal does admit that the team showed the sort of character and bottle racy of champions at different stages of the championship. "We were down by six points to Redhills in the quarter final but came back to win by something like five which showed that there was a fair bit of character about the side. "I was surprised but delighted by how well we played in 2003. Just as surprised as I was in getting the Player of the Year award." Needless to say, Cathal rates 2003 as his best year (to date) with Lavey as he collected his first adult championship medal with his native club and was afforded the Player of the Year award by the county board's judges. At that point in time, the defeat to Bailieboro in the IFC final of '88 was almost made into an irrelevancy. And yet 2004 turned out to be so miserable for him and the intermediate team. There were the broken ribs, of course, on one hand and then . . . "we hadn't Joey Jordan, Sean Maguire or James Carolan for many of the training sessions or matches because of their involvement with the county so that didn't help matters. "We seldom had a full team out in 2004 and it showed with our results," the former Ulster title-winning Virginia Vocational Schools pupil adds. As another season races towards us, Cathal is largely undecided whether he'll give one more year to the cause. He didn't attend the post-Christmas players' meeting but had proffered a genuine excuse for his absence beforehand. Lavey's players and the club officials were no doubt glad to see that no doors were being closed on Cathal's possible re-entry into the frame for '05. But the spectre of another gruelling year's training isn't one that thrills him. "I haven't fully decided on what to do this year. It's hard to mix all the training with the farming. "Football is a big commitment. You're talking about at least two nights a week and a Sunday along with it. It's more suited to a nine to five job and that's not what farming is about." Cathal feels that Lavey, with or without him in the coming year, have the potential and the talent to win the 2005 IFC title. The club "missed the boat the first day against Drung" in the semi-final when confidence was really high in the camp after victory over a very fancied Ballinagh outfit in the last eight. "We were poor in the first game against Drung and didn't raise our game enough for the second even though they didn't play much better either," recalls the ex-county minor. But for the coming year, there is the prospect that Lavey will be without the services for a considerable time of Joey Jordan (Scotland-based) and James Carolan (knee operation) and Cathal knows that the club will be up against it in trying to deliver championship medals to all and sundry. For now though, Cathal is happy to bide his team with regard to committing himself totally to achieving such a goal. Lavey's stalwarts will hope that one of their own doesn't do the unthinkable and hang up his boots . . .just yet! Tweet

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